Differentiated brands are rooted in differentiated offerings.

Differentiated offerings are rooted in differentiated strategies.

Differentiated strategies are rooted in differentiated operations.

Differentiated operations are rooted in differentiated organizational structures.

Differentiated organizational structures are rooted in differentiated roles.

Differentiated roles are rooted in differentiated personalities.

(By “differentiated personality”, I mean having a personality that doesn’t easily fit into a standard professional role definition.)

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Undifferentiated brands have things  easier.

They have an easier time explaining themselves because they conform to expectations customers have already learned from their competitors. They have an easier time explaining their offerings because the offerings differ from others by well-established attributes. (“Ours is cheaper.” or faster, or lighter, or easier to use, or whatever.) They don’t have to put too much work into strategy, nor do they have to take risks with untried approaches to solving new problem. Instead they can assemble their strategy from readily-available and well-proven best practices. The same is true for their operations and hiring. They’ll find ready-made employees with ready-made knowledge of how to do things, who can just plug right into place and do their thing with no training required, and no adjustment to idiosyncrasies. Plug the role into the hole, and flip the switch and out comes industry-standard deliverables.

For all these reasons, and more, few companies choose to differentiate. Entire industries lack real differentiated brands. And it all works out fine, until it stops working.